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Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

#71

Post by danenania »

mbreese wrote: post #68
danenania wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your first comment, you say you want high information density. In this one, you say if there are irrelevant results on Google, you'll just ignore them and scroll past. I get that there's always a high bar to switch to a new tool, and Google obviously has certain advantages that are tough to replicate, but it seems like you're applying a bit of a double standard. If Google shows me a bunch of ads and irrelevant res…

With one dominant search provider, we are constantly conditioned to parse the results from Google. It is very easy to ignore certain parts of the page and mentally process which parts of the page your brain is interested in. So, while it’s not necessarily “information dense”, finding the information you need is comparatively “cognitively light”. Or at least predictable… The devil you know…

Fair point, but I think the technical term for that is "Stockholm Syndrome". Or perhaps in this case, we should call it "Mountain View Syndrome".

Re: Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

#72

Post by 8organicbits »

joshstrange wrote: post #58

First Impressions: * I won't use a different search engine for programmers stuff vs everything else. So while this might be targeted toward software developers I can't see myself using it unless it can handle normal searches. * UI/UX - I hate the progress bar, I'm not sure at all what it's telling me as there are results shown while it's still completing. The results are way too spaced out. On my 27" 2K screen I can…

> * I won't use a different search engine for programmers stuff vs everything else.

I'd use this as a ddg bang[1]. I don't use them often, as ddg is a great search engine, but some search engines handle certain queries better and ddg lets you route queries efficiently.

https://duckduckgo.com/bang

Re: Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

#74

Post by ziddoap »

danenania wrote: post #67
joshstrange wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each their own. I have 1 flow for search which I don't plan on changing and I personally have no issues with google search (for code, technical, or otherwise). I still consider it to be one of the best and I don't agree with the "google search is getting worse" crowd. Maybe at some point I'll use some kind of "search hydra" that hits multiple engines and either combines the results or shows me the results based on…

In your first comment, you say you want high information density. In this one, you say if there are irrelevant results on Google, you'll just ignore them and scroll past. I get that there's always a high bar to switch to a new tool, and Google obviously has certain advantages that are tough to replicate, but it seems like you're applying a bit of a double standard. If Google shows me a bunch of ads and irrelevant res…

Not the parent poster, but I think there is an important distinction between information density and information relevancy. Google is information dense (compared to this), but not all of it is relevant. This search engine aims for higher relevancy, but the density suffers from the stylistic choices of the creators.

Re: Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

#75

Post by wayy »

ianbutler wrote: post #56

Hey so I built a search engine doing largely the same thing (and also interviewed with YC during the W20 time) and ultimately we pivoted away due to lack of interest from the developer teams we were pitching, often the startups we were pitching didn't have enough accumulated internal knowledge for the paid plan to be useful. For the ones who did (at the like 200+ person 5+ yrs in business mark) we still weren't seein…

Right now we're primarily focused on building a search tool that developers love. Would love to chat more about your experience - shoot us an email at founders@sayhello.so

Re: Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

#76

Post by chiken »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #25

Glad to see better search tooling for programmers since it's an essential task we do every day. How do you compare yourself to you.com's specialized search engine for developers? https://you.com/code

you.com is a lot more informationally dense, feels quicker to find the right answer, and I rarely have to open a new tab because of the (open side panel) button. Beyond programming, it doesn't seem like I can use hello.so on a regular basis for normal searches compared to Google and you.com.

Re: Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

#77

Post by richardsocher »

joshstrange wrote: post #58

First Impressions: * I won't use a different search engine for programmers stuff vs everything else. So while this might be targeted toward software developers I can't see myself using it unless it can handle normal searches. * UI/UX - I hate the progress bar, I'm not sure at all what it's telling me as there are results shown while it's still completing. The results are way too spaced out. On my 27" 2K screen I can…

We learned many of these lessons at https://you.com/code:

* we also needed to build a strong "everything else" search engine and then

* have great results for coding with specific search apps like StackOverlfow, AI code complete, ++

* be very fast (we messed that up when we first launched)

* have great scores on Privacy Badger, be compatible with uBlock, etc.

Last week we've started opening up our platform to collaborate on results with outside developers and have gotten a lot of interest: https://about.you.com/developers/

Maybe we can collaborate also with you guys at sayhello. Ping me at hey@you.com if you want to compare notes.

Re: Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

#78

Post by lancesells »

GrinningFool wrote: post #66
lancesells wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hope it's not legal. > Hello pulls in the raw text from all five search results linked on the search page to generate... Not to be negative but I think I'll stick to the sites and people that made the results and not a middleman that intends to charge for other people's work.

I think that framing is missing some nuance. Seems more like they would be charging for the process that goes into sifting through those results and pulling out other people's work on the user's behalf.

Yeah, I can see there's a lot of work going into the process but it's still using other people's efforts without permission or compensation.

Re: Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

#79

Post by discreteevent »

joshstrange wrote: post #58

First Impressions: * I won't use a different search engine for programmers stuff vs everything else. So while this might be targeted toward software developers I can't see myself using it unless it can handle normal searches. * UI/UX - I hate the progress bar, I'm not sure at all what it's telling me as there are results shown while it's still completing. The results are way too spaced out. On my 27" 2K screen I can…

Lowest common denominator and "one click" is killing the internet for me. A lot of times I am the lowest common denominator and so that's fine. But when I am a specialist I want something that lets me be specific and gives me specific results.

Re: Launch HN: Hello (YC S22) – A search engine for developers

#80

Post by masukomi »

rushingcreek wrote: post #39
treis wrote: post #36

https://beta.sayhello.so/search?q=how+to+base64+encode+a+str... Query: how to base64 encode a string in ruby Response: I'm not sure what you mean by "base64 encode a string in ruby" - that's a bit of a misnomer. Base64 encoding is a way of storing data in a form that can be decoded by a human. It's not a secure way to store data, but it's useful if you want to send a message to someone who doesn't understand the lang…

Our index is based on Bing as of right now -- if they give us low-quality results, our generated answers will be low quality as well. We're definitely aware of this and are working on developing our own index to augment Bing's in cases like this.

while i assume there are good business reasons you're basing your stuff on Bing, it's notable that as a general rule developers don't use bing. In my experience the google results are radically better.
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